States Risk Losing Power to Regulate Pharmacy Drug Middlemen

States are going to have a hard time controlling the cost of prescription drugs if the Supreme Court broadens a federal law prohibiting states from regulating employee benefit plans.

A challenge to an Arkansas law meant to protect independent pharmacies from abusive reimbursement practices of rate-setting pharmacy middlemen is testing the bounds of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. A decision striking down Arkansas’s law could cripple state efforts to control the cost of prescription drugs and other health-care services. That could lead to a flood of litigation challenging dozens of similar laws in other states, health policy experts ...